Raunch

Regitze Hess

Futilism or brutalism what are we faced with? Rauch is what comes to mind. Blood, sex, vomit, violence, splatter, come and curse words. Seemingly the world of www.hornsleth.com. Apparently appealing to some real bad boys. However there are cases where Hornsleth's provocations may well bring on a real bout of anal retention. Making for some real puckered pusses. Here it is you have take a futilistic approach. Let go. Get real. Leave it to the art lovers to camouflage their contact with the raw in sushi and carpaccio. Hornsleth's recent Paris debut is very fittingly the place where de Sade wrote of innumerable recipes for refined ways of eating shit.

A gathering of the Futilistic Society allows for an open discussion of the down and dirty. Here it is perfectly cool not to be politically correct. Discussion of bodily fluids is not a problem. Being that any form of rules or restriction would be futile, it is a forum where you can bare all. The Futilistic Society is a liberating forum, especially considering a shared background at the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture where the overriding academic corpus obsessed over being clad in black while misquoting French philosophy, shitting strips of black leather and peeing club soda. As a fellow classmate, Kristian confronted us with road kill. He got the whole assembly of students in an uproar. He got in our face. Challenging an institution where there was a high level of mysophobia or fear of physical contact with the real world. As for some brutal honesty, our professors were probably happy to see us go.

While this was originally meant to be an off the cuff commentary on Hornsleth and the Futilistic Society, I was prompted to delve back into some of the architectural theory that appealed to me during those school days. While deconstructivism was the order the day, looking more carefully one could find that the coryphaei of architecture spoke of decay, decomposition, bullshit and dirty realism:

Bernard Tschumi, said to be the first professor of deconstructivism, wrote upon visiting Villa Savoye in 1965: "The most architectural thing about this building is the state of decay in which it is." In the same article went on to state; "Architecture only survives where it negates the form that society expects of it. Where it negates itself by transgressing the limits that history has set for it."…….."Sensuality has been known to overcome even the most rational buildings. Architecture is the ultimate erotic act. Carry it to excess and it will reveal both the traces of reason and sensual experience of spaces. Simultaneously."

"Architecture and Transgression"
Bernard Tschumi

Peter Eisenman, famous for letting form follow theory, wrote about the futile; "The futile object and the process of decomposition are no longer arbitrary objects and anomalous processes, nor a mutation of classicism. In this new time they may of become, albeit accidentally, the destiny of architecture today."

"The futility of objects; Decomposition and processes of differentiation"
Peter Eisenman

Refreshingly Frank Gehry said " The best thing about Peter's (Eisenman) buildings is the insane spaces he ends up with. All that other stuff, the philosophy and all, is just bullshit as far as I'm concerned."

Lastly Rem Koolhaas, an architect of dirty realism and the erection of junkspace, is known to have crawled around on his hands and knees in rubber gloves scrubbing Mies van Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion. Koolhaas' most recent publication, "Content", from 2004, is a cheap glossy, blissfully illustrated with satirical caricatures of his own building projects as ugly little bastards. Subtitled "Perverted Architecture", it concludes with a two page spread featuring these caricatures as cover girls of architectural porno magazines. Architecture engaged in perverted acts. While many young Danish architects are currently being recognized for paraphrasing OMA's practice, it is as if Hornsleth is the one who is true to the perversion advocated by Rem Koolhaas. Rauch and perversion needed in an otherwise antiseptic world of minimalism, resuscitated modernism, designer labels and fear of filth.

To add to the extracts from The Futilistic Manifesto

"Futilism is a method of deciphering new meaning out of that which we otherwise consider futile" p. 29.

"Futilism is an instrument for generating frameworks of thought, that also can form the basis for the production of art.", p. 35.

"Futilism serves as a navigator in the search for an honest point of departure for an artistic process true to its time.", p. 36.

"Beauty is not synonymous with perfection.", p. 41.

"Futilism may well be stillborn, and its legitimacy may perhaps only be due to its actual existence.", p. 92.

Regitze Marianne Hess, American-Danish architect based in Copenhagen, January 2005

This text was published the first time in the book Fuck You Art Lovers Forever,
Kristian von Hornsleth, Futilistic Publishing, Copenhagen 2005.